The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to communicating data between information handling systems using a secondary data channel.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Many information handling systems require the ability to transfer large amounts of data between each other in order to operate properly. For example, docking systems connected to host computing systems may require large data transfers when flashing operations are performed for devices in the docking system. Flashing operations are typically performed to upgrade a device by overwriting existing firmware or data in the memory of that device, to change the provider of a service associated with a function of that device (e.g., changing a mobile phone service provider), to install a new operating system on that device, and/or to perform other flashing operations known in the art. However, docking systems such as, for example, docking systems implementing the Universal Serial Bus (USB) Type-C specification have proven to have relatively long latencies during flashing operations. This is due to the USB Type-C specification providing for control communications over a configuration channel (CC) line that connects to USB Type-C connectors, which was provided for flow-control operations and to establish end-point contracts, and is subject to a relatively high protocol overhead during data transmissions. As a result, flashing operations for a device in the docking system using the CC line are on the order of several minutes, which is undesirable and becomes even more so when flashing operations are performed for all the devices in the docking system.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved system for transferring large amounts of data between systems that are currently limited by the issues described above.